


Circumstances

by ssa_archivist



Category: Smallville
Genre: Futurefic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-06-18
Updated: 2003-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-01 09:56:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/355281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssa_archivist/pseuds/ssa_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex has a conversation with Superman, with surprising results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circumstances

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Stone Princess for the quick dirty beta and the title, and to Shelley for being all supportive and stuff. 

## Circumstances

by Joyfulgirl41

<http://www.livejournal.com/~joyfulgirl41/>

* * *

Disclaimer: Not mine. Bygones. 

Feedback: Oh, yes please! 

* * *

Heroes create circumstances; circumstances create heroes. ATTRIBUTION: Chinese proverb 

* * *

"Luthor." Superman affected a look of bored amusement, his arms crossed over his chest, a small smile playing at his lips. "I'm beginning to get the idea that you do things like this just for attention. Maybe if I just gave you my phone number, you wouldn't have to come up with such complicated schemes." 

Lex smiled, even though Superman was mocking him, because he was right. This last plan had just been to get his attention. Lex had always had all the information he needed, but had never been able to quite put together completely. He was sure that all the pieces were in place now. 

Lex hated being wrong, tried to avoid arguments unless he was sure he could prove he was right. It was why he didn't often engage in moral debates, they always left him feeling unsatisfied. But this... _this_ was something he had been waiting for, patiently until he was absolutely sure he couldn't loose. This would be the payoff to every lie he'd been told since that day on the bridge. The taste of victory was so sweet and heavy on his tongue that he had trouble forming the words. "I have your phone number, _Clark_." He crossed his arms, leaning back against the railing of the balcony, waiting for a reaction. 

The tolerant chuckle wasn't the reaction he'd been expecting. In his head there had been more stammering and blushing, something more Clark-like. Of course, Lex hadn't talked to Clark in years, but that was beside the point. It was still _him_ ; Lex was sure of it. 

"So close, but never quite there. That was always your problem, Luthor." From anyone else, it would have been an intended insult. Superman merely sounded like he was making a curious observation. "Clark was never as mysterious as you wanted him to be and I'm much more complicated than you've ever given me credit for," he said. 

"Give it up, Clark." Lex frowned. "I have evidence, you can't try and lie your way out of this." 

Superman smiled again. "Can I tell you a secret?" He looked over his shoulder, out over the Metropolis skyline, before turning back to face Lex, his expression one of wistful amusement. "I'm not Clark." He held up his hand before Lex could protest. "I'm...I'm sort of the resident alien inhabiting Clark's body." 

Lex blinked at him, not quite sure how to process that. "What?" He wasn't sure what was being admitted to. Hadn't he just said that Clark and Superman were the same person? The issue of how to classify that seemed to be splitting hairs to Lex. 

"See?" Superman sighed. "I told you it was complicated." He looked back out over the city, his brow furrowed in a look of internal debate. Finally turning back to Lex, he said, "Let me see your evidence." 

So thrown by this turn of events that he wasn't sure what else to do Lex turned, leading Superman into his apartment where he had, among other things, a video of Clark changing into Superman. He watched Superman nod as the video played, as if this was what he had been expecting all along. Lex, who had always been suspicious by nature, was fairly certain this was some plan to trick him, but decided to wait and see how it all played out. 

"Here," Superman said, pulling the remote out of Lex's hand. "I'll try and explain. This?" It was the beginning of the video, where Clark was standing with Lois and Perry. "Is Clark." The video showed Clark rubbing his temples and excusing himself. It followed him down the hall until he ducked into a supply room, exiting in a blur. Superman paused the tape. "This? Is me." 

"Yes, I believe I drew those same conclusions," Lex said warily. If Superman thought he was going to be able to trick him, he was going to be sorely disappointed. "You're the same person." 

Superman shook his head. "No, Luthor. You're not _getting_ it. Do you remember the day Clark told you he had feelings for you?" 

Lex nodded, his jaw clenched. It had been the day after Clark's eighteenth birthday. They had been walking around Lex's property. Right after Clark had admitted how he felt, he collapsed. They had come to one of the areas on the property that had been hit during the meteor storm. Green flecks of rock glowed as Clark writhed on the ground. Lex had been able to pull him far enough away that he could stand, though he had still been a little weak. 

"I told you that until you could be honest with me about everything, I didn't want to hear anything else." He'd been so scared that day, seeing Clark in pain like that, being totally helpless in a way that he never was when he was the one in danger. Lex hadn't looked back; refused to examine the choices he'd made that day. They had been made and worrying over them wouldn't ever change that. 

"You turned and walked away." Superman didn't look troubled by the memory, which stung more than Lex wanted to admit. "Except, that wasn't me, that was Clark." 

The third person thing was starting to wear a little thin. Lex was about to say so but the stoic look on Superman's face stopped him. It was Superman's "serious" face, the one that even Lex didn't challenge...too often. 

"Let me explain. I owe him that much." 

Lex nodded, deciding to see where this was going. If it was what he had to put up with to get some answers, he would. He had been idiot to assume he would ever get a straight answer out of Clark, even in a situation like this. 

"After you left, something happened. What it was, I'm not exactly sure. One theory is that Clark had a psychotic break. His powers had been developing steadily since he'd hit puberty. The week before that day, he'd learned to fly. Well, your...rejection was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back." 

"What do you mean?" Lex asked. He was beginning to vaguely understand what Superman was telling him, although he wasn't sure if he was right. 

"For so long, he'd had to keep that part of himself, his weird gifts and origins, a secret. Clark sometimes wished that he could be separated from it completely; he blamed himself for a lot of things that were beyond his control. He was afraid it would eventually drive all his friends away. Between that and the messages from his biological father, he couldn't handle it, so he just...stopped." Superman paused, frowning a little. "I became separate. Everything that was alien about Clark became me; a different personality that Clark is now completely unaware of." 

"How can he be unaware of it?" Lex asked. "Wouldn't his parents tell him something? Wouldn't he become just a little bit curious as to why he couldn't get a paper cut or a bruise?" 

Superman shook his head. "He's not invincible anymore. Clark is human. I rewrote some of his parents' memories. They believe that Clark was orphaned by the meteor shower." 

"His parents?" Lex asked, a little shaken by the matter-of-fact tone Superman had used when he talked about controlling the minds of the people who had raised him. He also hadn't realized that Superman had mind-control powers, but he figured now wasn't the time to ask. "So you have no emotional attachment to them?" 

"Yes and no. I know what you're thinking, but what I did, I did with their permission. I explained what had happened. They thought it would be best if they didn't remember, that it would help protect Clark as well as themselves." He sighed again. "Clark and I are separate, and we aren't. I have all of his memories and I'm aware of what he's doing at all times. That's how I know when I'm needed. But I don't have the same emotional attachments as he does. That's what allows me to do what I do day after day without having a psychotic break of my own." 

"So, if you have no emotional attachments, what's to keep you from..." he trailed off. It was one of his biggest fears. Superman was all-powerful and the only thing that seemed to keep that in check was a healthy overdose of Jonathan Kent's platitudes. 

"Taking over the world?" Superman finished for him. "I don't have the ambition. Clark never provided me with it." He grinned. "I'm simply the embodiment of Clark's sense of justice, his empathy for people and his desire to help them with the benefit of some really neat powers." 

Lex wanted to laugh, but he wasn't sure if that would be appropriate. "What's the other?" 

"The other?" Superman asked. 

"You said that one theory was that he had a psychotic break. I assume you have another theory." Lex said with a frown. "What is it?" 

"Oh." Superman blinked. "I would've thought you'd have guessed. There's a theory, one which I'm sure you at least considered, if not fully believed; that the meteors grant wishes." Superman studied Lex for a moment, as if waiting for him to fill in details, and then said in a leading tone, "Clark didn't want his powers." 

"So the meteors separated his powers from him," Lex said, finishing the thought. Oddly enough, that made sense. "So why tell me all this?" Lex asked finally. "Are you going to erase my memory?" 

Superman flashed another smile, the one that always showed up in the pictures of him in the newspaper. "No. I'm telling you this because Clark still loves you. I thought maybe if you understood..." He shrugged. 

Lex walked over to the bar to pour himself a drink, his hands shaking as he picked up the bottle. He'd never considered that Clark would still have feelings for him, considering the animosity that had developed between him and Superman. This was a lot of information to process. "What does he think happened?" Lex asked as he pulled out a glass, shock making his movements slow, more controlled than usual. "Between us." 

"He just remembers that you fought, nothing of the details." 

"And what happens when you have to do something? What does he experience?" 

"He blacks out. Migraines that he's had all his life. The doctors can't figure out what's wrong with him." 

"And you know what's going on all the time?" Lex asked as he turned back around. "You're always watching him?" 

Superman smiled slyly. "I give him his privacy, Luthor. I respect him. I won't ever know what makes you purr, if that's what you're worried about." 

Lex blushed for the first time since...ever. "I didn't--I never said I made up my mind about anything. What makes you think I even feel the same way? How do you know I even believe your story?" Although it did make sense, how Superman could be so completely different from Clark. Clark was never that good an actor. 

"He'll be home all evening, if you want to talk to him," Superman said. "If you do go, I'll give you your proof." He walked back out onto the balcony. 

"Is he--I mean, if you separated, then he would be different. He wouldn't be the same Clark I knew, because that Clark was a combination of the two of you, right?" 

"It doesn't really work like that. Everything that happened to shape the person he was still happened, the results are still the same, even if he doesn't remember the process. He's still the person you fell in love with." 

Lex bristled. "I never said I was in love with him." 

"Honestly?" Superman shrugged a little. "I really don't care." 

"So, you're not attracted to me at all?" Lex asked. 

Superman turned back to fully face Lex. "His feelings for you were always completely human. He must have wanted to keep you for himself entirely. Nothing of what he feels for you belongs to me, Luthor." With that, Superman flew away. 

Lex was able to keep himself from going to Clark's for all of five minutes. Things were different now, he told himself. Superman was probably jerking him around. Clark probably hated him, after all these years. But in the end, curiosity, at least, that's what he told himself it was, won out. 

He didn't even need to think about the fastest route to Clark's apartment; he knew the way although he'd never actually been invited to Clark's apartment. He didn't want to think about the implications of that. 

As he knocked on the door, Lex realized how truly rattled he was. The whole thing was probably a game. A nice, alien mind-fuck to make up for all the shit he'd pulled in the past few years. 

And suddenly, Clark was there, sucking on his index finger as he opened the door, those ridiculous glasses sliding off his nose. "Lex," he said, pulling his finger out of his mouth. "What...?" 

"What happened to your finger?" Lex asked, noticing the red drop of blood. _I'll give you your proof_. 

"I was making dinner. You, um, the knock startled me and I sliced it a little." Clark looked rather dazed. 

"Let me see," Lex said, grabbing Clark's hand gently so that he could study the cut. "That looks deep, but not too bad." Before he could really think about it, he brought the finger up to his lips, kissing it gently, licking the familiar coppery taste of blood off his lips. He looked up, feeling a little guilty at the bewildered hurt written on Clark's face. "You should put a bandaid on it." 

"Thanks for the medical advice," Clark said stiffly. "Is there anything else you wanted?" 

"Yeah. There's just one more thing," Lex said. "A second chance." 

The End 


End file.
